To Play With A Click, Don’t Practice With A Click!?

One way to improve your click playing would be to practice with a click that plays every other bar. Then, play through the silent bar, evenly spacing the grid without the click’s help. If you nail the downbeat of the following bar, you’ve successfully subdivided evenly. However, this approach lacks a fundamental component: you’re not actually playing a song.

This video illustrates a way to get comfortable playing with a click by practicing to a piece of music without a click. The idea is that if you play a slow song with sustaining chords and little rhythmic cues, you must play in time, make the song feel good, and honor the song’s context. This means defining the pulse, subdividing within a grid, and creating a drum orchestration that complements the song.

Practice with a song that has no click, long sustaining phrases, and enough rhythmic content to hear the tempo. This will help you build an “internal clock” that makes it easier to be comfortable with a click. The song’s tempo is already defined, and you’re using the musical content to hear it, which allows you to subdivide it evenly. A drummer who evenly subdivides notes in a grid will sound solid and in the pocket.